Eating Bugs

I was at a party the other day and an enthusiastic young person started to tell me how passionate they were about a new company they were working with- a cricket food company.

Now normally I let people really into some aspect of their diet just move along without me saying too much. Coming from the pet world I know how much we are pretending we know all about nutrition when in reality we still have a lot of work to do. When it comes to pets we tend to be more realistic about what we know about their nutrition.

Firstly, sad as this may be, we have tested a lot of theories about food on animals. The easy part with pets is to say “well they don’t eat that in the wild” but the human complex is to say “well maybe that wild diet not what is best for them and we can make them much more nutritional sound with our food technology.”

This science is way beyong my pay grade I am just tell you about it from the perspective from the pet guardian and the pet food industry. We know what will kill our pets and us which is pretty good at the least.

BACK TO THE MAIN POINT! I actually know a little bit about crickets. Not in the way of how to prepare them in culinary cultures that use them, or even in the nutritional way they are being used in the current market BUT I knew a little about what this young man said really enthusiatically “Well we all know the farming of animals we do now is messed up–” (again this was a party so excuse the dumbery of his speech) he goes on “it’s innevitable that we’ll switch to crickets.”

So there’s a lot broken with animal care in the world so I am not going to address that or disagree I guess but farming crickets was something that raised my eyebrow and knew he wasn’t going to understand my objection especially when he went on to say “I mean you could breed your own food.”

So I didn’t want to sound like a jerk to this person ( I had already explained his office mates were definitely trying to prank him by telling him to freeze crickets- a well known demonstration at science centers across America to freeze and seeminy bring bugs back to life) but people with reptiles already know where I am going with this.

I am not agains eating bugs but it would have to be in remote closed environment. A. Breeding enough for even a bearded dragon is a dubious prospect. When this party guest did not understand the massive space it would take to generate enough protein for 1 human I gave up on explaining further. B. Anyone who has done this for their scaly pals knows crickets are escape masters. Every cricket breeder has had to deal with a minor infestation. I got midway through the sentence “would you rather live next to a heard of cows or a heard of crickets?” When I switched the topic. See the thing is when a cow escapes we know it. And if a cow gets into my home I also know about it. And the idea of a pregnant cow getting into my home and me not figuring that out…I think I’d 100% solve a cow infestation in my house by 2 cows. THIS IS NOT THE CASE WITH CRICKETS.

If even 1 or 2 crickets got out of your farm in a populated area then I am left to deal with crickets in my home- and here’s the biggest issue- I am definitely going to exterminated crickets in my house. And now the farmer is none the wiser to my problem and then the possibility of poison getting into your cricket food source is even greater.

I BY THE WAY! Am very willing to talk to anyone or company who does think breeding crickets for humans is plausible in urban environments. In my documentary SPIDERS WILL EAT YOUR FACE I was shocked by how many experts encouraged the home breeding of tarantulas. So feel free to reach out to me.